How to Legally Adopt an Older Child Into a Same-Sex Family

Not every adopted child is adopted as a baby. There are countless children over 10 who need a stable home and family. Here's how to find and adopt one.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Attorney
• Family therapist

1. Relax and keep your eyes open for an opportunity to adopt. The child may find you. Volunteer as a tutor or at an after-school recreation program.
2. Read the newspaper and watch TV. Many markets have a feature such as "Thursday's Child" focusing on children in foster care who need a permanent family.
3. Enlist the aid of a lawyer who specializes in family practice (they often practice in the same firm as divorce lawyers). Such lawyers frequently know of children who need good parents but are not necessarily in foster care.
4. Ask the local office of your state agency that oversees foster care if it facilitates adoptions. If it does, start the approval process.
5. Research and understand your options for adoption as a same-sex couple. This varies from state to state.
6. Spend as much time with a prospective adoptee as you can. Avoid making promises to the child.
7. Find out what the child knows about homosexuality, including all the epithets and slurs you can think of. Make sure the child is comfortable with both of you individually and as a couple.
8. Discuss with the child whether or not she wants to change her name. She may feel more comfortable keeping her family name as a link to her past.
9. Protect yourself. If your adoption does not involve a child in foster care, bring the state agency into the process anyway, as a safeguard. Your lawyer can tell you how.
10. Make an appointment with a family therapist for the entire family-to-be. Discuss issues, hopes and fears.
11. Prepare for your life to change completely.

Tips & Warnings

• If you cannot jointly adopt the child legally in your state, consider selecting one of you to be the adoptive party. Then execute an agreement between the two of you to share emotional and financial responsibility for the child. Such a document will often calm the fears of medical personnel and law enforcement officers about the nonadoptive parent's right to approve treatment and speak for the child. Ask your lawyer about the possibility of having such an agreement included or recognized in the court journal of the adoption.
• Make sure you've got enough money to do this. Remember, the child is going to reach the age of orthodontia, car insurance and college tuition more quickly than a baby.